2019/01/07Just arrived at Litom with some Stabbers, decided to take one out for a spin, smell the fresh air of Curse and learn the lay of the land. When travelling through Utopia, I noticed a Sabre and Ishtar on dscan near the Hemin gate. Warping to a tac, I noticed the Sabre sitting alone on the gate with the Ishtar no longer there. Trying my luck, I warp down to the gate and jumped through. The Sabre followed and dropped a bubble. Wanting the Sabre to aggro, I aligned out with mwd off, trying to act as easy prey and baiting him into scramming me. To my pleasant surprise, he fell for it. Knowing that he's not alone, I needed to kill him quick. Thankfully, this is exactly what my Stabber is fit for and he didn't seem to realize that. Thirty seconds later, the Sabre was a steaming hot wreck. Soon after, his friend in a... Drake jumps in, but I've already started burning away. By the time he locked me, I was well out of point range and moonwalked away while exchanging gfs in local.

Not done with the night yet, I decide to poke into Catch and see if I can harass any ratters. Dotlan shows ratting in 6-MM so I check it out. After finding two afk VNIS on dscan, I warp to them to see if I can do any damage. I almost died. Turns out heavy drones apply quite nicely to cruisers. I almost kill a single Praetor when I started taking armor damage. Frantically warping out and leaving my drones, I realized that Stabbers aren't suited for VNI hunting, never do this. Licking my wounds at a safe, I swore to myself I'll get revenge when I properly train into my wolves. At the safe, I saw a Hyena on dscan with a Loki and Vexor, likely part of the response fleet to get me. After playing cat and mouse with the Hyena for a while, I realized it was getting late and decided to head home. The Hyena chased me nearly to Litom but gave up after being separated from his friends. In hindsight, I'm glad I decided to run instead of suicide for the Hyena as I doubt I would've been able to kill it without drones before it webs me and runs out of my falloff range, leaving me helpless.

2019/01/08Poked into Catch again. Was messing around in a system playing cat and mouse with the response fleet when I managed to find and isolated Stilleto. It rammed me and I managed to kill it before I died to his friends.

Poked into Catch again and found a bomber fleet with a black ops battleship tethered at a Fortizar (were they dropping?). The battleship MJDed in direction but failed to catch me. Seeing that I got their attention, I warped to a planet at 100km with the hope of the bombers chasing. Hopefully I could pick one off before they get me. All went according to plan but the last part, the bombers managed to put me into armor before I could even lock on to one of them and killed me a second after, I expected to last a bit longer than that. Looks like I underestimated how much torpedoes can apply to cruisers especially with multiple target painters on you.

Skipped past Catch and heading to Immensea this time, I spotted a Procurer undocking and warping to a gate. I follow through and manage to catch it on the other side... only to get scrammed and webbed by it. Confused, I try aligning out while shooting it while a Brutix jumps in. After what seems like an eternity, I break his shields and armor... only to find my autocannon rounds barely chink his hull, by then I die to the Brutix. It turns out Procurers can be insanely tanky and make quite good bait. I guess I'll be avoiding them from now on.

I headed back to Catch again and dip into a ratting pocket. I spent too much time there and the locals managed to form a response fleet. Unfortuneatly there were no frigates in the fleet for me to pick off so I try to leave. After playing some more cat and mouse and considering logging off, I managed to find an isolated Sabre. Unfortunately it was bait as a Loki was cloaked beside it, I couldn't kill this one fast enough before getting webbed down and dying.

I decided to try one more time before I had to sleep and headed to a different part of Catch. After entering another ratting pocket and playing more cat and mouse with the response fleet, I managed to find an isolated Taranis. I approached it with mwd on, but this interceptor was too smart to ram me. He kept a stable orbit outside scram range and I start frantically trying to approach him while his friends caught up. Even then, I still managed to get the Taranis into hull before falling. If I had tried slingshotting him instead of panicking and trying to approach, he definitely would've been dead.

Was checking Doril for any content when I saw a lone Hecate on the gate. I engaged knowing that it should be an easy fight for the Stabber. Halfway through his armor, an Augoror warps in and heals him to full, this results in another dead Stabber

Later roamed to a different part of Curse when a Malediction from a Retribution gang caught me on a gate. I wasn't able to get scram on the interceptor in time before the rest of the gang finished me. I fell with the Malediction getting into hull.

Welp, that's all I had. Until I get more Stabbers shipped down I'm probably gonna krab some more in PC9 while I wait. I'm also thinking of trying a new fit as there wasn't too many incidences where triple gyro scram fit was useful. I was either being kited by interceptors or brawled by other cruisers so there wasn't anything small I could pick off in time before dying.

Newly fit Stabbers finally got hauled over, took one out for a spin to Catch in search of revenge against VNIs. I manage to find one ratting and proceed to get point. I keep a wide orbit on it (20km) so I can maximise my speed in order to kite his drones. After a minute, I noticed he wasn't taking anymore damage. Confused, I saw I burnt out my guns! Stupid mistake, I ran all the way back to Litom with a tail tucked between my legs.

Trying again, I found another VNI, this time I did the same thing but made double checked my guns to see if they were heated. The fight was going pretty well until I noticed the VNI was out of point range. Confused, I looked down at my cap and noticed I had none! VNI warps off and I run out of that pocket for a second time humiliated. One day... one day I'll have revenge!

...

Was warping around and ran into a response fleet camping the pocket I was in. Got tackled by the Sabre and had to stay and fight; I managed to get it into armor but it burned out of my point range and warped off. Had I'd been using my old fit with a scram the Sabre would definitely be dead. RIP

A day after, I decided to take another one out into Pandaland this time. On the way, I encounted a gatecamp in Curse. During gatecloak, I made the decision to align out to a safe with overheated MWD instead of crashing gate. Nothing could catch me and their tackle was being screened, my escape was guaranteed. Interestingly enough, it was the Imperial Navy Slicer that tries going for hero tackle instead of the Stilleto, despite not even having a scram. He gets a bit carried away as I think he underestimates how well a Stabber can apply to frigates, especially with light missiles. He only attempts aligning out after getting down to hull but my long point prevents him from warping, giving me this kill and a break from my deathstreak.Imperial Navy Slicer: 27,508,172.18

I dock up for a bit and the gatecampers get bored and leave.

After arriving at Pandaland, I chance upon a lone cyno Imicus on a station.Imicus: 1124,646.37

A few more hours of roaming empty space with extremely attentive and paranoid ratters (bots?), I wind up in a more active system where I get pursued by a fleet. As I aligned out on a gate, I managed to get a Crucifier Navy Issue into hull but tunnel visioned and forgot to point him, missing out on an easy kill. Afterwards, I make the mistake of warping to a celestial instead of a safe, giving their tackle an opportunity to follow and land right on top of me.

When flying a Stabber, the only time light tackle should be able to touch you is if they land ontop of you through warp. Always warp to a safe or moon if you need to get off grid, never warp to a well known celestial or gate where interceptors can easily follow and get their before you.

Last edited by Xyrin Bacard on 2019.02.06 09:36, edited 5 times in total.

Was returning back to Litom to repair modules after a fruitless roam but ran into a gatecamp on the way. After escaping and warping to a safe I consider logging off and calling it a day. However, a few minutes later I spot the gate being empty with only a Deimos and Stilleto on it. I warp to 100km to get a better look only to find out the Deimos was parked at the exact spot I land! He predicted where I would warp to get intel.

Took out another Stabber two days later and managed to find a ratting Ishtar! I warped to it in hopes of a dank killmail. Unfortunately, I got too close and this one turned out to be a bait Ishtar. It managed to get scram-web on me and I died shortly after. Funnily enough, the same guy was able to get Mongo's Wolf a few days earlier. It seems these guys in Tactical Supremacy are used to hunters coming into their pocket and have prepared accordingly.

Went out again and found a Hecate camping a bubble in 9-8GBA. Initially I ran away from it in fear of him having friends (see 2019/01/09). Noticing that he warped away in fear as well, I wagered he didn't have any support at all. He must've gotten more confident seeing me run away as well and we both went back to the bubble to fight it out. I reload to explosive on the way and start the fight in scram range, giving the Hecate even more confidence to commit. The starting range didn't matter as I outbrawl him easily, he couldn't get under my guns unless he turned on MWD and made him a much bigger target. This combined with his huge explosive hole results in him getting down to hull in a few seconds. Right as he was about to be finished off, a Tengu decloaks and steals my kill! Afterwards he starts shooting me but didn't point me for some reason despite me being within 20km. I get out. Even though the Tengu finished him off, the Hecate was definitley dead due to me in spite of the Tengu. For this reason, I'm counting this towards as a solo pvp experience despite it not appearing that way on zkill.

Went out again and decided to try hunting in Immensea again. As I make a tour around a ratting pocket, everyone docks up and a response fleet forms, blocking all pathways out the pocket. I try warping to a gate at 70km to see what happens. A Stiletto tries tackling me but I manage to screen it off. A few minutes after, I try the same thing but warp at 50km this time. My relative proximity and the Stiletto's thirst for blood this time around led him to ram straight into me in an attempt to hold me down for his friends. I align out and overload on the Stiletto as he gets carried away trying to tackle me. By the time he pulls away, it's too late. He would have to burn 20km with MWD on before he can warp due to my point. As a result, I track him perfectly and he pops.

After warping from tac to tac off each gate, I notice the response fleet having to spread out to cover them. I notice a Hawk amongst them and decide to focus on that so I preload EMP. After playing cat and mouse, on each gate, I succeed in momentarily separating the Hawk from his friends who were in battlecruisers at the time. I warp to the gate where the Hawk and a Confessor were on at 50km and the Hawk's thirst for content propels him towards me in an attempt to tackle. My EMP shreds through his shield like tissue paper, the Hawk panics and activates ADC while overrepping. He had no scram so I was never really tackled, also he would have a hard time pulling off as well. 15 seconds later his ADC wears off and he goes POP!

After logging back during the quiet hours of this region, I head to Litom repair up and head back out to Catch. A jump into the JZV-O6 pocket, I notice a ratting VNI. Lusted for revenge against the VNI menace, I furiously pinpoint him down and land in his site. He was already aligning out but the Stabber with overheated MWD and point proves too fast for him. This time, I orbit him at 10km, wide enough that I can maintain speed to kite his drones but tight enough that he won't get out of point range. The orbit turns out to be perfect as he falls surprisingly easily with me only taking ~50% shield damage. The Stabber's revenge has finally begun!

After leaving the pocket, I notice a Procurer and Hulk mining at an Athanor in a system with near empty local. Warping at 100km to see what's up, I notice the Hulk manages to leave but the Procurer hasn't noticed yet. Warping down to the asteroid, I get tackle on the miner and start shooting... and shooting... and shooting. After what seems like an eternity he finally breaks into armor. Jesus Christ those things are tanky! It turns out a non bait Procurer is even tankier than a bait Procurer due to it not having to allocate mid slots for tackle. A scary thought!

After, a Sabre warps to the belt and burns away towards the Athanor. I follow only to find that it baited me into scram range of the structure (150km). After slowburning out of scram, I warp off to a safe to lick my wounds. A small gatecamp of cruisers form up to block me, but they lose interest soon enough and I get back to Litom.

Not done with the day yet, I head back to Immensea for some more content. After entering the krabbing pocket of Evictus, I notice a small fleet of miners and Orcas at a rare ore belt. As I enter, everything but a Miasmos warps off, leaving drones behind. I get tackle on the Miasmos and pop it before two Caracals land.

After viewing the killmail, I noticed it had warp stabs. Finding it hilarious that the Miasmos didn't just warp away, I ask in local about what happened. Apparently the pilot was borrowing the Miasmos from a friend and he never bothered to see the fit before taking it out so he just assumed he was pointed by me. A funny kill indeed.

After roaming their back pocket a bit to no avail, I decide to head back to Litom... Only to run into a big gatecamp set up by the locals. Holding gatecloak, I notice they had nothing positioned above me so I burned in that direction while locking up their fast tackle. Noticing that a Keres was roleplaying as a Stilleto, I approached and overload on it. It drops to hull in seconds but then stops taking much damage as he gets under my guns. Approaching him was a mistake as I just made it easier for him to get a tight orbit. However, no one was killing my drones so they slowly finish him off. He couldn't pull away as that would lower his transversal which would instantly result in his death so he chose to stay in orbit as it would take him longer to die. Light missiles and Warriors carried me in this fight as my 6 solo killmark Stabber takes out his last victim before finally falling to the blob.

After coming back from a rather dull Caracal fleet in Litom, me and Kirsid decide to roam Catch a bit, bringing a Stabber and Confessor. Entering the JZV-O6 pocket again, I decide that me and Kirsid should split up to cover more ground before the locals respond. The plan was for one of us to chance upon a VNI and have the other head straight to us to help. Luckily, it happened to be me who found his victim first, I warp in and promptly begin business as usual, telling Kirsid to come. However, the fight was much harder than before as I made many mistakes here. First, I loaded thermal instead of shooting into the VNI's explosive hole. Second, I rammed the VNI a bit too hard and took some unnecessary damage from his drones. Third, I forgot to take my 3% damage drug. Also, I pulled too far out of range multiple times in the fight reducing my damage and the rats were going at me pretty hard this time around too. As a result, I barely kill the VNI with my dying breath before a hostile Ishtar and Kirsid warp into the site. The Ishtar finishes me off and proceeds to kill Kirsid as well. He could've lived had I not encouraged him to engage come to me or try to engage the Ishtar solo, bad call from me.

Since, Kirsid only came in after my fight was over and I had no help dscanning it down and tackling it, I'm gonna count this as solo pvp as well. The war against the VNI menace continues!

Decided to take out my first Wolf solo to look for VNIs in Catch. They all docked so I decided to warp near a Rorqual to see what would happen. After staying on grid with it for a few minutes, a Stiletto, Sabre and Harbinger come to get me off as the Rorqual has to pull excavators while I'm near. Believing dank frags can be obtained here, I warp down to the belt 50km away from my adversaries and align out with mwd off. The Stiletto and Sabre charges me so I turn around to fight, thinking I can pop both him and the Sabre as as long as we stay far from the battlecruiser. I land scram on the Stilleto and kill him easily before turning to the Sabre. It was here that I realized... I f*cked up. It turns out the Sabre was active tanked which made him harder too kill, but more importantly, the Harbinger was beam fit rather than pulse. This means that despite him being 50km away, he's hitting me perfectly, leading to my death. I should've taken a look at the Harbinger's guns to see he was beam fit while and also should've pulled the Stilleto even further from the battlecruiser. The extra separation from the Stilleto and the Sabre would've given me more time to bail after popping the interceptor. It might've even helped me kill the Sabre alltogether before the Harbinger DPSed me down.

After a few hours and an uneventful small gang roam, I decided to head back in my Stabber in search of more pews. After some more roaming in Catch with everyone docking up in sight, I was bored out of my mind. On the way back to Litom, I find a Vexor staying on a gate by himself. Thirsty for action, I foolishly engage in hopes of being able to kite it out. My first critical mistake was trying to engage a Vexor in the first place. Thinking back I'm pretty sure that thing could've permatanked me no matter how much I kite, at least until his friends show up. My second critical mistake was trying to kite it out by keeping at range instead of manual piloting or at least orbiting. This way, the Vexor was easily able to slingshot me and land scram. A retribution comes later to help as well, guaranteeing my death.

I decided to continue the old routine and bring another Stabber into Catch. Entering the pocket, all VNIs immediately dock up as usual leaving only Rorquals and Carriers. Bored, I decide to warp to a Rorqual to harass some excavators. It pulls drones immediately and I warp off to an ongrid tac to make the Rorq feel uneasy about using excavators. A few minutes later I spot a Stiletto on dscan near a gate, a familiar face. I warp to the gate at 40km to get a better look and sure enough, the interceptor was sitting right on it. I wait there for a few 10s of seconds to let his friends form up and give him the confidence to ram me. Just as I predict, he suddenly bolts at me 6000m/s, straight into the path of my autocannon rounds and into his death. Since I was aligned out, I warp off before his friends were anywhere near me.

It seems like Dangerous Voltage ran out of suicide tackle so they resort to a massive Sabre camp on the pocket exit. Luckily, I manage to get a good gate spawn upon jumping through and manage to escape the camp with overheating and aligning. Unfortunately, I burn out my mwd, so if I get caught again, I'm dead. Since I'm no longer in the pocket, the locals have to split up to cover all the gates. Using this to my advantage, I manage to almost escape Catch by keeping track of the Sabre from my safes and choosing to jump through the ones where the Sabre was not. Unfortunately, I finally get caught as Sabre pulls a fast one by pretending to be on the other side of one gate but quickly warping to the other one, leading to my death. In hindsight, I should've just logged off.

Took out another Stabber today and was preparing to head to Catch when I find a lone Ares near a gate. Curious, I take a few potshots while aligning out at it to see what it does. Surprising, it red boxes and tries to ram me, resulting in his death a few seconds later to my massive explosive damage. Right as he dies, local spikes by about 25 and a huge cruiser fleet jumps in. Luckily I was already aligned and easily make my escape.

After heading back to Litom to repair some heat I find another interceptor alone on a gate, this time a Stiletto instead of an Ares. History repeats itself as another interceptor falls today only for the killer to moonwalk away with impunity before a 30man fleet.

Going back to Litom AGAIN for more repairs, I finally head to Catch... only to find nothing, not even a response fleet. Disappointed in the Russians and Aussies, I head up north to Immensea, home of Evictus. After entering this pocket, the VNIs dock up even before I enter system, proving the legends of non afk VNI ratters. Deciding to leave, I notice a decent sized gatecamp with no light tackle and a Hecate. Knowing this, I warp bounce from gate to gate in the system, landing 50km off each time. This not only separated the fleet but also tempted anyone with me into trying for tackle due to my close proximity. Eventually, I manage to get the Hecate separated in the sense that he was the only ship fast enough to catch me on grid at the time. I align to a safe with mwd off, load fusion and wait for the suicide tackle syndrome present in most sov holders to kick in. Sure enough, the Hecate rams me and dies in about 20seconds due to his huge explosive hole. He manages to delay his death by a few seconds through some tight orbiting, but it's not enough. As I work him down, the rest of his fleet joins up and gets me after the Hecate falls.

That turned out to be the last Stabber I had with me in Litom. I've had much more success with this long point-light missile fit than I did my old one and plan on getting more of them shipped down before the deployment ends. Half will be the current fit and the other half will be a revisit of my scram fit but with some big changes.

Since I'm out of Stabbers at the moment, I decided to take out a Wolf to go kill some ratters in Catch. Unfortunately, all of them docked as soon I breathed in the general direction of their pocket. While roaming around, I found a lone Stiletto on a gate. Fearing a bait, I align out with prop off to act like I'm scared and trying to run away. This pressures the interceptor into making a rash decision to tackle me right away in fear of letting a potentially juicy kill slip away. As a result, he rams me and dies with his friends too far behind to help. His fit being paper tanked didn't help with that problem.

After playing some cat and mouse with the locals and bouncing between safes, they stop seeing me as a threat and go resume regular activities, minus any VNI ratting. I was getting bored too so I decide to take one quick sweep around the pocket before heading back to Litom. While inside a system, I notice a Malediction near a gate on dscan. Curious, I warp to the gate at 30km and land about 20km away from the Malediction. A little smarter than the Stiletto, this interceptor tries going for an orbit on me instead of ramming straight at me. I just align out with mwd while this happens and wait until the Malediction's orbit makes him burn straight at me. From there, it's an easy slingshot and I land scram on the interceptor which results in his death. Unfortunately, while this was happening, his friend in a Myrm shows up and burns towards us while we keep eachother tackled. He gets on top of me with scram-web and I fall shortly after as well. In hindsight, I should've dragged the Malediction further from the gate in anticipation of his friends coming to help him.

My Stabbers arrived at Litom some time ago but I haven't gotten around to whelping them... until now.

To change things up a bit, I decided to take out my new-and-improved scram-fit Stabber to start things off. This fit is designed to use it's 530 heated dps and scram to lock onto something like a Sabre and melt him before his friends can kill me. After leaving Litom, this is exactly what happens.

I notice an Eris and Drake camping my outgate, so I load fusion and warp to the gate at 30km to see if I can tempt the dictor into ramming me for tackle. The plan worked and I get an Eris charging me... at 1.5km/s. I l leave my room, eat some dinner and watch a movie before coming back to my PC to see the Eris has just gotten into scram range. I scram him back and try to keep him at least 5km away. At first, I use orbit 7.5km which accidentally slingshots me out of scram range for brief periods of time due to my Stabber having not fully decelerated to base speed. Luckily, the Eris helps me out here by bubbling himself so losing scram for a few seconds wasn't a big deal. I finally decelerate and switch to keep at range 7.5km instead, which massively helps me control range. This was one of the cases where keep at range is better than orbit. After about 20s, the Eris is dead and an Executioner jumps in to try and land tackle as well. The outcome is as expected. This entire time, the Drake never gets within point range and doesn't do that much damage to me. I just warp off with only the Drake left.

The next day, I take out the same Stabber and notice I'm running low on light missiles. I must've forgotten to get extras shipped down but luckily there were some being sold in Utopia. After doing a quick supply run, I notice the usual suspects camping the Doril gate in Utopia. I warp to a tac and notice they had two Svipuls, Sabre, Oracle and two Scythes. Knowing that I can't break their logi, I nope out and warp back to Litom. Unfortunately, I catch their attention and the Svipuls follow, one landing on the gate before I do. I get tackled on the other side and am forced to fight. I get scram on it and overheat, hoping to kill it before their logi comes. I get the destroyer into half armor before he catches reps before dying soon after to their gang.

Taking out a point fitted Stabber this time, I decide to avoid Curse and head the other way into Catch. ON the way there, I spot a lone Hecate just chilling by a gate. I load fusion and align out hoping he would aggress, it works as usual and a brawl starts between the two of us. Hecates can never really get under a Stabber's guns just because of how slow they are without prop. Even better was the the destroyer only had one web instead of two, making it easy to align out and keep the Hecate's transversal low. After 40 seconds of overheating, I notice my guns being almost burnt out and unheat them. This Hecate was surprisingly tanky but ultimately falls after a minute of sustained fire. Noticing something weird about this one, I decide to stay and loot the wreck.. Only to be greeted by the sight of 80m in loot! That explained why this Hecate was so tanky, he was dual rep with cap booster. Unfortunate, Stabbers are OP so even a Hecate blinged out to this degree stands no chance against even a basic fit such as mine.

After dropping off the loot and repairing, I continue down my original route and head into Catch. As dictated by routine, all VNIs immediately dock so I'm just roaming the pocket for no reason. On my way out, I notice some Rorquals mining with a Harpy with them. Wanting this Harpy, I warp to the belt at 50km, hoping to pick off the frigate outside of Rorqual drone range. My plan seems to work and the Harpy rams me with the Rorquals being 90km away. I shoot the Harpy, see it rep up, shoot it again... and watch as it reps up again. A few minutes later, I feel something is wrong, I'm being scram webbed by the Harpy so it can only have a single shield rep. I'm getting good damage on it too, so it's physically impossible for the Harpy to be able to outrep me. By now, I'm down to a 1/3 shield and very confused. Having a suspicion, I switch to my drone overview tab... and notice a swarm of shield maintenance bots. I start locking up the drones but it's too late, I'm already in armor. A flycatcher shows up as well to add insult to injury before I die. In hindsight, I shouldn't have assumed the Rorquals would have no effect in this fight even if they're 100km away and quickly checked my drones tab to make sure of this. If I did so, I might've been able to kill all the repair bots which would allow me to actually damage the Harpy.

Another ordinary day. Decided to take out another Stabber to Catch. Found a VNI in MB-NKE, warped to it, shot it, got it down to 1/3 hull before his buddies arrived and finished me off. I forgot to take my damage drug and also only started to shoot him after getting scram. Had I not been so greedy with both those things, I probably could've killed it.

Felt like solo pvping again, I forgot my jump clone to LItom so I had to pod my way down there. On the way there, I noticed some miners at an Athanor. After warping to the Athanor and bookmarking a jetcan, I reshipped into a scram Stabber. Hoping they wouldn't suspect anything from seeing me in a pod, I made my way back and warped straight to the bookmark. I landed with everything still around me and chose to tackle a Covetor, the least tanky thing on grid. Everything else warped off and some of their buddies came back in a Tengu and Ishtar. It didn't matter as the Covetor died within 20 seconds and I was long gone before they got within 50km of me.

Arriving in Litom, I did the usual and went back to Catch to fail at catching VNIs. Upon the expected happening, I started leaving the pocket. This time however, the residents bought a much larger response than expected and I somehow still decided to warp to a gate at 50km and try and pick off some tackle. Unfortunate scram Stabber isn't nearly as good for this job as a long point so I get rekt.

Not done with the day yet, I undock the clearly superior long-point fit and head to Immensea. It was getting close to downtime, so I had to find something to kill quickly. Upon arriving at the ratting pocket, I actually managed to catch a VNI this time! This time I take my damage drug and make to start shooting him ASAP. Seeing that downtime was only a minute away, I overheat everything. 50s: he gets down to 2/3 shield, 40s: 1/2 shield, 30s: 1/4 shield, 20s: no shield, 10s, no armor....... 0s, 1/4 hull!!. I think I'm just destined to never kill another VNI again, not with the luck that I've been getting the past few days. After anxiously waiting 15min to log back in, I stay in the site in the hopes that he'll log in on top of me as well. With nothing better to do, I kill off his abandoned drones so he can't use them against me.

15min later, I gave up and started heading back to LItom, however, I did notice a lone Hecate on dscan for the entire time. Thinking it to be a trap or something, I warp over to the gate at 50km to check it out. Seeing just the Hecate alone, I cautiously approach while loading fusion, expecting a Loki to decloak at anytime. When I got to within 30km, the Hecate just started charging me, thinking if there was a Loki, it can't kill me before I kill this Hecate, I get closer and start shooting/pointing him... 10 seconds later he dies as soon as he gets within 2km of me. Not surprising for a Hecate.

2019/02/22Went out roaming to Immensea, noticed a Retribution and Hecate tethered nearby. Wanting to bait down down to me, I went 40km away from the gate I was on, thinking I could kill the Hecate before dying if he tried brawling. Unfortunately he turned out to be rail Hecate, so both ended up kiting me out for a bit. For some reason, I still aggress and they were also able to keep me pointed until a Drake showed up to seal my fate. At this point, the Hecate was in hull and already off so had the Drake not been there, I would've been able to force the Retribution off as well and get out.

I made two big mistakes before this engagement even begun. 1: Not looking at the Hecate's guns to see if he was rail fit (too lazy to remember all the turret models, maybe this should change). This would've stopped me from taking this fight all-together, saving my ship. 2: Aggressing on the Hecate anyways and denying myself the option of crashing gate (would've also saved my ship).

A few tens of minutes later, I went back for revenge. This time there was no rail Hecate to bait me but a few more cruisers instead chasing me around the pocket. Seeing there wasn't anything I could really kill, I started making my way home. It was then I jumped through a gate and noticed the same Retribution only 10km away from me along with a few cruisers. Seeing that he's within overheated scram range and that he also has no scram, I know I can easily control range against it if I get the initial scram off. So I burnt towards it with everything overheated. Luckily the pilot was slow to react so he couldn't quite burn out of scram range before I lock him. He manages to stay alive for quite some time with the help of his ADC but still falls before I do.

Went back to Immensea as they seem to give the best content. Warping around through their pocket to encounter an Enyo on a gate thinking he could tackle ME. Well it turned out was right as he had me under scram-web and managed to mitigate much of my autocannon damage with a tight orbit. This combined with his ADC meant he survived in half hull before his friends showed up to finish me. Unfortunately, the scram fit Stabber uses hobgoblins instead of warriors, which dealt the thermal damage that Enyos were very resistant to. And drones also happened to be the majority of my damage against him for that fight. Had I used warriors instead, he would probably be dead, but whatever, it's fine.

Went out to Catch in a long-point Stabber this time to change it up. After yet again, not finding much, I decided to hit to Immensea instead. On the way there, I encountered a gatecamp made up of a Drek, ONI, Astero and Vengeance. The ONI makes escape difficult, as it's actually faster than me. I can't crash gate either as they have multiple scrams and webs on fast locking frigates and the dps to kill me before I can make it. So I burn off in the direction furthest from the ONI to maximize my alone time with the frigates. Sure enough, the Vengeance pursues with the Astero hanging back (probably just here to whore on the km). After about 50km, I manage to haze the Vengeance off with the ONI being surprisingly far behind for some reason. As I was about to warp away, I notice the Astero charging right at me... with about the same speed as me. I know if I get point on it, it'll have a very hard time escaping and I'm confident I can kill it before dying myself. So I turn around and do just that. The Astero doesn't even recognize the danger it's in until it reaches hull. By then, the Astero breaks from its tight orbit and reduces traversal in what I dub the "Retreat of Doom" -- common mistake for all inexperienced tackle pilots. It drops and so do I.

Had the Astero fitted dual reps and not approached me head on which got him into hull shortly after establishing tackle, he might've been able to tank me long enough until I died. In that case, a neut-fit Stabber would perform much better.

Not done with the night yet, I head to Immensea (my original goal) this time with a scram Stabber. I check for the gatecamp earlier and saw it's gone, so I proceed. This time, I head to a different pocket as the residents in the usual pocket were starting to get smart. After bouncing around, I small group formed up to catch me. With some interceptors and a Sabre for tackle. I notice the Sabre sitting on a gate, so I warp down to it at 30km to try and bait it on me. Luckily, it worked and the Sabre was down before his friends even exited warp.

After bouncing around some more, I manage to get a Stilleto to land near me on an anomaly. I get scram and started mowing him down. He slowly pulls range and as he's in 1/2 hull, scram is broken. I realized I forgot to overheat my scram and desperately try to correct this mistake but it was too late. The Stiletto was off and I die to his friends. From now on, I might just permaheat my scram when fighting interceptors as they die very quick but they can pull range pretty fast too. No risk of burning out scram there.